Executive Director - Emerging Strategic Priorities

Enterprise Technology & Services (ETS) delivers shared technology services for the Firm supporting all business applications and end users. ETS provides capabilities for all stages of the Firm's software development lifecycle, enabling productive coding, functional and integration testing, application releases, and ongoing monitoring and support for over 3,000 production applications. The ETS Portfolio Governance & Delivery (PGD) team oversees the strategic alignment, execution, and governance of key initiatives, ensuring they deliver value, meet organizational goals, and adhere to compliance and risk standards, while also managing and facilitating cross‑functional alignment and dependency management.

Within PGD, the Emerging Strategic Priorities (ESP) function provides a consistent, structured approach to standing up high‑priority initiatives. ESP evaluates and prioritizes incoming work, clarifies objectives and ownership, aligns stakeholders, identifies dependencies and risks, establishes the initial operating and governance model, and prepares initiatives for successful transition into formal delivery. We are looking for a senior executive with deep experience in enterprise strategy, complex program leadership, cross‑functional integration and executive stakeholder engagement.

This leader will provide enterprise‑level coordination across a dynamic portfolio of emerging priorities and create clarity, alignment and momentum where ownership, scope or execution paths are not yet fully established.

As the Executive Director for Emerging Strategic Priorities, you will lead the shaping and operationalization of new, ambiguous and cross‑cutting priorities from initial intake through readiness for execution. You will provide an integrated view across initiatives, ensure the right stakeholders and decision‑makers are engaged, surface conflicts and dependencies early, and translate strategic intent into clear outcomes, governance, resourcing and executable roadmaps.

The successful candidate will operate as an enterprise integrator and execution leader: trusted by senior management, comfortable navigating ambiguity, able to challenge constructively, and disciplined in converting complex, fragmented activity into a coherent portfolio narrative and action plan. The role may also transition to lead a major complex program once an emerging priority moves into formal execution. Responsibilities include but are not necessarily limited to:
Lead the intake, triage and strategic assessment of emerging priorities, evaluating alignment to ETS strategy, business outcomes, criticality, complexity and execution risk. Act as the enterprise orchestration lead across multiple emerging initiatives, maintaining a connected view of scope, sequencing, ownership, decisions, dependencies, resources and leadership commitments. Translate broad or evolving strategic direction into clear problem statements, target outcomes, success measures, decision points and executable roadmaps.

Bring together senior stakeholders across multiple Tech Divisions and other partner organizations to establish shared direction and coordinated execution. Design fit‑for‑purpose program structures, including governance forums, decision rights, escalation paths, stakeholder engagement models, work streams and accountability frameworks. Identify overlap, duplication, gaps and cross‑program impacts; recommend prioritization, sequencing and trade‑off decisions to senior leadership. Provide concise executive reporting and recommendations that distinguish decisions required, delivery risks, interdependencies and actions from general status information.

Partner with initiative sponsors and functional leaders to determine the…